The Tempest

tem-pest |ˈtempist|

nouna violent windy storm.
That is how my Mac defines "tempest." A violent, windy storm. Today, I am beginning to read Shakespeare's play by the same name, The Tempest.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

The night has ended and the dream is over.

This week I finished reading A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was great—it really was. I thoroughly enjoyed my reading of the play and read it faster than I have any Shakespeare work before (unless you count his sonnets, but that wouldn't be very fair). These are some of my initial thoughts on it.

Dear Hamlet: Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Sweet Smoke of Rhetoric!

I just finished reading Act III of Love's Labour's Lost. The use of wordplay in this particular play is excessive and takes a central role in the play itself. Often, the characters spend more time bantering and discussing their use of language than they do actually living life itself or moving the plot forward. But, this in and of itself becomes an important part of the story. I found particularly interesting in this act Shakespeare's use of language to contrast the fool of Armado and the passion of Biron.

The Abstraction of a Dream

Dreams are strange things. They are often inexplicable, random, and unexpected. On top of that, they are rather uncontrollable. Interestingly enough, I believe that this same description could be applied to love. This seems to be a theme in the play that I have been assigned to read and study in my Shakespeare class, A Midsummer Night's Dream.

The Heart versus the Head

I am beginning to read Love's Labour's Lost by William Shakespeare. I have never read this play and, though I have heard the title, know little about it. In preparation for my reading, I have read a synopsis of the play and its general storyline. These are my thoughts in anticipation of the play.

The Missing Post

Well, it has come to my attention that I completely forgot to post on Friday. Whoops. The reason is simply that I had a paper due on Friday that I focused my attention on and thus pushed the need to write a post out of my mind. I will have to do better in the future. But this is a blog about Shakespeare. So what can I learn about Shakespeare from this experience?